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Incredibly cool touchscreen products

July 4th, 2007 | Nintendo, Technology, Microsoft, Linux, Apple by th

Touchscreen is not a new technology, but it is steadily coming more mainstream. Touchscreens definitely have a lot of huge potential to ease interaction with our everyday gadgets and computers, so here is a little roundup of current touchscreen usage in real products.

Citywall

Although Microsoft stole to highlight a while ago when they revealed Surface, Citywall is something that I really need to mention first as I’m Finnish and this thing is (and was when Surface was revealed) installed right in the middle of Helsinki.
The interface is quite similar to the Surface, but Citywall has some nice features - It gathers content in realtime from public sources, such as Flickr and YouTube. If you have photos of Helsinki in Flickr, just tag them with ‘Helsinki’ tag and they can end up in the Citywall screen.

The touchscreen technology and applications used in Citywall have been developed by the Ubiquitous Interaction group at the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology.

Photo of people using Citywall

Microsoft’s Surface

Surface is Microsoft’s new table computer that can be used in restaurants, shops, and places like that. It can interact with bluetooth devices too, for example when you place a bluetooth phone on it so you can see information about the phone, which makes it ideal marketing tool for the mobile phone shops. Restaurants can also use it as full table-sized menu. Surface definitely has a lot of potential and cool usages. Surface website holds many demonstration videos, worth checking out.

Surface

Nokia N800

N800 is Nokias Internet Tablet which runs Linux. It is controlled with stylus pen and has web browser, email, mediaplayer and many 3rd party applications. Unlike other Nokia Nxx products, this one does not have phone and it is only meant for web browsing. N800 does have VoIP application so it can be used as VoIP phone when you’re connected to wlan network. N800 is a nice example of touchscreen powered gadget (even it’s through stylus) and using Linux in embedded devices.

N800

Tablet PCs

Tablet PCs are Microsoft’s vision of replacing pen and paper. Its touchscreen allows the user to operate the computer with a stylus or digital pen, or a fingertip, instead of a keyboard or mouse. Tablet PCs are kind of hybrid laptops and touchscreen gadgets - they are usually made smaller and lighter than conventional laptops with rotating screens so the user can hide the keyboard and use stylus to control the computer. However, the most criticized weak point in Tablet PCs is usually the software, as Tablet PCs runs usually normal Windows operating systems (There is several Linux distributions for Tablet PCs available though, but these suffer the same problems) which, by original design, was meant to be controlled with mouse and can’t match devices specifically designed for touchscreen usage. Although Tablet PC edition of Windows does add good features that take advance of the touchscreen and improves the usability with stylus, Tablet PCs haven’t really took off since the actual experience (in most cases) adds very little value over conventional laptop usage (with keyboard and touchpad). However, Tablet PCs have potential as the technology advances and the software gets better. Big seller for Tablet PCs is that they can run any existing desktop application.

Nintendo DS

When Nintendo DS was released in 2004, it was (and still is) a very innovative handheld game console with dual screens and a touchpad. Lower screen is touchscreen which works with stylus. Nintendo DS has sold 45 million units to the date. If you’re interested to find out how touchscreen or stylus can improve the interaction with the user interface in mainstream products, Nintendo DS stands as a great example for it.

Apple iPhone

Probaby the coolest consumer product available with touchscreen. iPhone has been in the news lately so much that there’s no reason to mention its technical features all over again. But it is just too cool to skip. If you have somehow managed to skip iPhone hype, here’s links to check: Official Apple page, CNet review, Terry White’s review and a lot more.

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It’s incredible how many products utilize a touch screen monitor these days. Not only are they fun to use, as in Citywall, but when products like barcode scanners and even symbol scanners come equipped with touch screens, it’s extremely convenient and business-friendly.

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